All of us know our birth age but how many of us know our Moon or ‘Lunar’ Age ? Especially if you are Chinese, you do have the advantage (or disadvantage) of being 1 to 2 years older than your actual birth age.
Why is this so... It is all thanks to how the Chinese system determines your age on this earth. Unlike the Western system, in which your age is determined based on time of birth, the Chinese system starts clocking your age from the time of pregnancy.
Incidentally, since the period of pregnancy may vary, the age of the child is normally considered to be one year at the time of birth. In addition, the number of days per year is less in a Chinese lunisolar calendar as compared to the Western Gregorian calendar. Thus, you’ll naturally be older according to the Chinese year calendar, as compared to the Western one.
Another interesting point is you have a “real” age (实岁 / shí suì) and a “fake” nominal age (虚岁 / xū suì). The real age is the one we all know about. You grow one year older on your actual birthday. However the nominal age for everyone officially increases on the seventh day of Chinese New Year, traditionally known as Rénrì (人日). It is on this day, a long long time ago, the Goddess Nüwa first created human beings by molding them from clay.
To add to the confusion, if you think that the nominal age is always your birth age plus one year, think again . If a person's birth day is very close to Chinese New Year, theoretically they are already 2 years old before they even reach their first birthday (1-year old when they are born & 2-years old come their first Chinese New Year). Now you can understand why some elderly folks may be celebrating their 70th birthday even though their actual birth age is only 68.
This brings us then to the subject of the Lunar Calendar. This calendar can be traced back to the 14th century B.C where supposedly Emperor Huangdi, the first Chinese emperor, in 2637 B.C. invented the Chinese lunar calendar which follows the cycles of the moon. The Moon 月 yuè or 太阴 tài yīn has been the most useful clock for thousands of years.
The moon takes 29.53 days to go around the earth and just as importantly the phase of the moon changes through this period from full to half to new to half and back to full again. By carefully tracking the phase of the moon one can work out the exact day within a month.
Each time the moon moves into a line with the earth and the sun, a new month begins and this is called 'Chu Yi' or 'Shuo Ri', meaning the first day of a lunar month. When the full moon appears, it is the middle of the month. The time of a full moon circle is a little more than 29 days, so one month has either 29 days or 30 days. Instead of adding an extra leap day every four years the chinese calendar introduces a whole leap month every couple of years. On a final note, the Chinese lunar calendar is important as it determines the dates of many Chinese traditional festival.
And for those whose lunar birthday happened to fall in the month of Oct, here’s a moon Haiku for you.
The moon changes face
Repeatedly fails to match
Your constant elegance
